A baby girl who has never had a name should be put up for adoption by a new family, a judge has ruled.

The eight-month-old’s parents refused to give her a first name and she is known only by the surname in which social workers have registered her.

She has remained without a first name while the family courts considered her fate and in the ruling made public yesterday Her Honour Judge Sarah Lynch called her only ‘the child’.

A baby girl who has never had a name should be put up for adoption by a new family, a judge has ruled

The girl’s parents said they would not give their child a name or register her birth because according to their beliefs, which they said included the Bible and human rights law, her life is private and no-one else has a right to know about their family or interfere with their lives.

The judge said the mother had a ‘warm and loving’ relationship with her baby, whom she sees regularly even though the girl is living with foster parents. The baby would benefit from being brought up by her own family, the judge said, and she rejected social workers’ arguments that the girl should be taken from her parents because they refuse to co-operate with the council or medical staff.

The family should not be broken up for the sake of social engineering, the judge said, adding: ‘I am personally also unconvinced that failing to name the child constitutes significant harm.’

But she ruled that the girl should be adopted by new parents because of allegations against the father that he sexually assaulted the un-named baby’s 12-year-old stepsister. A family court has found that the father touched the older girl ‘in numerous places, both intimate and non-intimate.’

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The father faces criminal sexual assault charges and is set to face trial at Leeds Crown Court.

Judge Lynch said: ‘If the child is placed with her parents she would have the benefit of growing up in her birth family, with no issues around her identity and with people who have a strong sense of their relationship to her. However I am clear she would not be safe from harm.’

The case is the second to come before the family courts inside a year involving a child with no name.

Last May High Court judge Mrs Justice Parker ordered that a five-month-old Hertfordshire boy who had not been named by his parents should be handed over for adoption. The High Court judge said the case was ‘terribly sad’ and that leaving the boy without a name was emotionally harmful.

However there were reports that the high-earning father, a Hindu, had refused to give the child a name because social workers insisted on being present at a religious naming ceremony.

In the case of the baby girl without a name, heard in Leeds, the parents said that the family court had no authority to make decisions about their daughter.

The girl’s parents said they would not give their child a name or register her birth due to their beliefs(file picture)

They said they were asserting ‘divine, inalienable and natural rights, and all rights here asserted and reserved are subject to accepted law through justice as preserved by the Holy Bible, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, Human Rights Act 1988, Bill of Rights, Lex Mercatoria, Treaty of International Law, Apostolic Letters issued by the Pontiff Francis ll.’

Judge Lynch said: ‘I confess I have found it hard to make sense of their view of authority, their philosophical stance.’

However, she said ‘they are clear the local authority has taken their child for the purpose of making a profit by way of unlawful adoption.’

The judge said the parents had ‘ably’ represented themselves in court despite their refusal to co-operate with social or health workers. She said that the father maintained the sexual assault charges were ‘unproven allegations of which he has not been convicted and the matter should be looked at by the Crown Court before any plans are made for adoption.’

She noted that a paediatrician had asked for the baby to be tested for HIV, and that the father had refused to tell the doctor the African country from which he had come to Britain. The doctor believed it was Zambia, but in fact it was the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has a lesser although still high rate of HIV infection.

Making a ruling that the baby should be placed for adoption, Judge Lynch said: ‘I am satisfied the child would be at risk of sexual harm from the father, in the way that her sister suffered harm, were she to be placed in the care of either of the parents.’